


Into the Breach

by Aini_NuFire



Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Angst, Crew as Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt Cristóbal Rios, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23528494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aini_NuFire/pseuds/Aini_NuFire
Summary: A Lethean attack leaves Rios in a coma, and Soji and Picard taking drastic measures to save him.
Comments: 37
Kudos: 73





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Story inspired by a DS9 episode. Thanks to Tessseagull for checking my Spanish translations! Will update on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Rios finished the powering down sequence now that _La Sirena_ was docked on one of the Telmarian starship ports on the planet. The strange doohickey the synths had given him to fix his ship had worked wonders on the internal systems, but now he wanted to patch up her hull, which had taken a beating in that crash landing on Coppelius.

The rear bay door opened manually, letting in a burst of natural light. Rios rolled his eyes; he'd barely put the parking brake on and his younger passengers were ready to jump ship. He couldn't fully blame them. Soji and Elnor had lived very sheltered lives and were eager to see the galaxy now that they were out in it. At least Raffi and Picard were playing chaperone; Rios didn't need that headache. Seven looked like she was going to tag along, or maybe she'd split off to do her own thing. She'd had a few opportunities to part ways with them but hadn't done so yet.

Agnes placed a hand on Rios's shoulder. "Are you sure you don't want to come?"

"I'm sure," he replied. "I have things I want to get done here."

She hesitated. "Want me to stay and keep you company?"

He offered her a soft smile. "No, really, go have fun with the others." He knew she was curious, having never been off Earth before this crazy adventure.

"Okay…" she said reluctantly and headed down to the lower level where the others were departing.

Once they were gone, Rios let out a long exhale. It felt strange being alone on his ship again. He'd lived that way for so long— _preferred_ it. But he'd gotten used to having real people around, and not just any people. Picard was no longer just a client, Agnes was no longer the random scientist who'd invited herself along, and Soji wasn't just the girl with Jana's face that Picard was taking on the galaxy to protect. Rios didn't even mind the Romulan kid with his Way of Absolute Candor, even though it could sometimes be awkward. They were a motley crew of misfits, each in their own way, but a crew nonetheless.

Rios grabbed the synth device and headed out the bay door to give his ship a visual inspection from the outside. Yep, not an inch of her wasn't scratched, scuffed, and scorched. There were even a few dents, though nothing that compromised the overall structural integrity. He fingered the device in his palm, still not comfortable using it. Just use his imagination, right.

He closed his eyes for a moment and envisioned _La Sirena_ looking shiny and brand new. He felt a tingle in his hand and opened his eyes as the device activated. Taking a breath, he touched the sparking end to the ship's hull. Purple squiggles spread out like liquid electricity, washing over the metal and smoothing away the scratches, dents, and dirt. It even revitalized the paint job to a glossy, sangria finish.

Rios stared in amazement for a prolonged moment. Okay, maybe he could get used to this thing too.

He went back inside the ship and cast a contemplative look around, wondering what else he should take the opportunity to touch-up. But no; this thing was handy for the big—or impossible—jobs, but Rios liked keeping up the maintenance on his ship himself. So he put it away in a tool cabinet and went to take an inventory of their supplies, see if there was anything they should get on this planet before taking off again.

He was in the middle of that when the hairs on the back of his neck prickled and he stilled, listening to the faint but distinct breathing coming from behind him. He slowly turned, stiffening at the figure standing inside his ship. Brown, leathery skin with a ridged face and red eyes set Rios on edge. Lethean. Not a nice species.

He mentally cursed; he'd left the bay door open to get some fresh air. He hadn't expected someone to just let themselves in.

"You got a reason for being on my ship without knocking first?" he said stiffly.

The Lethean bared his prominent incisors. "That device you used to repair your ship, I've never seen anything like it before. What is it?"

Rios could have kicked himself. The docks weren't so busy that he'd expected someone to have seen him use the synth device to patch his ship up instantaneously, but he should have been more careful.

"Sorry, don't know what you're talking about," he tried to play off casually.

"I'll offer you a good price."

"I don't have anything to sell."

The Lethean narrowed vermillion eyes and took a menacing step forward. "Or I'll just take if off your corpse."

Rios whipped his hand toward the phaser on his belt just as the Lethean lunged. But the Lethean was quicker and knocked Rios's arm aside so that his shot struck the bulkhead instead. Rios slammed his other palm up into the Lethean's hooked nose, snapping its head back. He tried twisting his arm under the Lethean's to get another shot, but the Lethean grabbed his wrist and flung him around. He went crashing over the top of the dining table and hit the floor on the other side, the phaser flying out of his hand.

Grunting, Rios tried to force himself to his feet. The Lethean swept around the table toward him as he reached his knees and clapped clawed hands to the sides of his head. A jolt like sizzling electricity erupted from the Lethean's palms and pierced Rios's skull. His whole body jerked and seized as blue plasma forked across his face. The Lethean leered over him, eyes glowing in the reflection.

"Em-m't," Rios managed to grit out with the last oxygen in his paralyzed lungs.

The last thing he saw was his Tactical EH delivering a karate chop to the Lethean's neck before everything went black.

.o.0.o.

"Look at this," Agnes said, reaching for a dress on display in the outdoor market. "It's so pretty."

"It'd look great on you," Soji replied with a conspiring grin. "I bet Captain Rios would agree."

Agnes blushed.

Raffi didn't really care for the frilly stuff and turned her attention elsewhere.

"It's so vibrant," Elnor was saying to Picard. "It reminds me of Vashti when I was a boy."

Picard's expression turned somber at that.

Raffi half turned again and focused on Seven, who was looking just as on the verge of boredom as she was. "Nothing here to your tastes either?"

Seven smirked, then pointed her chin down the street a ways. "I'm more into something like that."

Raffi craned her neck, scanning the stalls until she landed on what she figured Seven was referring to—the shiny daggers. "Elnor should appreciate those too."

"What?" the kid asked, appearing at her shoulder and making her startle.

She shook her head. "The weapons."

He cast his gaze around to look and a smile lit up his face. "Oh, yes, those do look interesting."

"Raffi," Picard chided.

"What? He's already got a katana."

Seven slung an arm around the kid's shoulders. "I think you need a set of throwing stars to go with it."

Picard huffed in exasperation, which Raffi found unabashedly amusing. Her comm pinged.

" _Vuelve a la nave ahora mismo_ ," a stern voice barked.

Raffi frowned. "What? Cris, I have no idea what you—"

" _Not_ _el capitán_."

"Emmet?" she asked dubiously. "What—"

" _Trouble, mujer_ ," he snapped and signed off.

Raffi sputtered in dismay and shot an alarmed look at the others. "We need to get back. Agnes, Soji!"

Picard tapped his communicator. "Rios, this is Picard. What exactly is going on?"

There was no response.

"Anyone on _La Sirena_?" he demanded huffily.

"What's wrong?" Agnes asked as she and Soji hurried over.

"Emmet commed and said there was trouble," Seven answered. "Rios isn't answering."

"Dammit," Raffi cursed under her breath and started back toward the docks. They weren't that far away, but if things were that serious, Emmet could have at least stayed on the comm long enough to beam them over. Raffi wanted to break into a full-out run but managed to keep a harried pace instead, the others following close behind, even Picard now that he had that new golem body without the creaky joints and arthritis.

The bay door was wide open when they arrived and Raffi sprinted inside. Her heart dropped into her stomach when she saw Emmet standing over some random half-reptilian, half-humanoid looking figure who was face down on the floor with his arms cuffed behind him and Emmet's boot planted in his back. He wasn't moving—and neither was Rios, who was lying unconscious on the floor with Emil bent over him with a medical tricorder.

"What happened?" she exclaimed, rushing over to crouch down beside Cris.

"We're not sure," Emil replied.

" _Atrapé a este hijo de puta atacando al capitán_ ," Emmet growled, looking more awake and animated than Raffi had ever seen from him.

"What?"

Emmet rolled his eyes and jabbed his phaser rifle at the guy beneath him, then pointed to Cris. Then he put his hand to his hand and mimicked having some sort of seizure.

Raffi cringed. "God." She turned to the EMH. "Is he gonna be okay?"

"I need to conduct a more complete scan. Can you help get him into sickbay?"

"Allow me," Elnor spoke up, moving forward and bending down to grab Rios's arm and haul him over his shoulder.

Agnes followed on his heels anxiously.

"We need to report this to the local authorities," Picard spoke up, glancing at Emmet's prisoner.

Raffi waved a dismissive hand. "Yeah, fine." She hurried into sickbay.

Elnor laid Cris on the medical bed and Emil quickly pulled up a full quantum generated scan of his vitals.

"No physical trauma that I can detect," the EMH mused out loud.

"Yet he's unconscious," Elnor pointed out needlessly.

Agnes stepped up to Cris's head and tapped at one of the readings to focus on them, her expression blanching. "These readings…"

"What?" Raffi demanded.

Agnes glanced at Emil, whose mouth pursed grimly.

"Delta waves," he said. "He's in a coma."

Raffi gaped at them incredulously, then down at Cris's slack face. Pivoting sharply, she stormed back out into the mess section of the deck. "Get him up," she said sharply to Emmet, nodding to the ETH's prisoner.

Emmet stepped off the intruder's back and reached down to haul him upright onto his knees. The saurian guy blinked rapidly and then hissed.

"What did you do to him?" she demanded.

He didn't respond, baring his teeth instead.

Raffi spotted Rios's phaser lying on the floor and went to snatch it up. She marched back over and aimed it at the captive's face. "Answer me, dammit!"

"Raffi!" Picard snapped.

"Cris is in a coma and I want to know what this bastard did to him," she lobbed back.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Elnor take up position behind her, watching tensely.

"He's a Lethean," Seven spoke up, moving around to stand next to Raffi.

"Lethean?" she repeated. "That's a telepathic species."

Seven nodded. "Their telepathic attacks are almost always fatal," she added gravely.

Raffi's blood ran cold and she jabbed the phaser in the Lethean's face. "Then fix him."

"Doesn't work like that," he sneered. "He should have just sold me the good I wanted."

Raffi furrowed her brow. "What good?"

"Saw him fix this ship in a matter of seconds. A piece of technology like that would be worth a lot to a lot of buyers."

Raffi faltered. Oh god, the synth thing. She swept her gaze around in search of it but didn't see it anywhere. Of course Rios wouldn't have just handed it over.

They were interrupted by approaching footsteps outside and then uniformed officers were shouting at her to lower her weapon.

"No," Seven interjected loudly. "He's the one you want. He came in here and attacked our captain."

Picard went over to greet them and explain the situation in that diplomatic manner of his, which at the moment did nothing but infuriate Raffi. She didn't want to hand this bastard over to the authorities; she wanted him to undo what he'd done to Rios, or, barring that, pay for it.

But she was overruled as Seven gently put her hand over Raffi's and lowered the phaser. The officers came over and hauled the Lethean to his feet. Emmet watched them leave and then flickered away.

Raffi let Seven take the phaser from her and set it on the table.

"It wouldn't have helped," Seven said sympathetically. "The Lethean species don't have a way to reverse the effects of their attacks. They've never seen a need to develop any."

"But you said the Letheans' attacks are almost always fatal," Soji spoke up. "Meaning not always."

"There have been some instances of recovery," Seven acknowledged. "A very few."

"Then Captain Rios could survive it."

Raffi ran a hand down her face. What was it JL had said? Hope and the odds make poor bedfellows.

Soji's gaze shifted to over their shoulders and Raffi turned to look. Agnes stood at the junction between the mess and sickbay, eyes wavering with a telltale sheen.

"Dr. Jurati?" Picard queried.

Her chin quivered as she lifted her head to look at all of them.

"He's dying."


	2. Chapter 2

Rios came to with a groan and rolled onto his back, squinting up at the upper deck and ceiling of his ship. Pain pulsed behind his eyes and he squeezed them shut for a moment before realizing he needed to get up off the floor, _now_. Forcing himself upright, he looked around for his attacker, but there was no one there.

He gripped the edge of the mess table and hauled himself to his feet. Everything was quiet, but in an eerie way that set his nerves on edge. He glanced at the bay door and found it shut, and the lighting in the ship was soft and dim from the internal systems. Could it be night on the planet and he'd been out for that long? But then where were the others? Surely they would have been back by now.

Rios reached up to rub the back of his neck, grimacing at the residual pounding in his head. "Activate EMH," he grunted.

Normally he wouldn't bother for something so trivial but he needed his brain working if he was going to assess the state of his ship, and if his attacker was lurking around somewhere. The Lethean had only wanted the synth device, but he could have decided to take some other stuff. Rios glanced at the cabinet where he'd stored the device; it didn't look as though it'd been disturbed. He'd leave it that way.

He frowned and looked around the empty deck. "Emil," he called.

His EMH didn't appear. Dammit, what had that Lethean done to his ship?

Rios picked his phaser up off the floor and headed for the stairs up to the command deck. He faltered at the vast expanse of space outside the window. The bastard had stolen his ship.

No one was currently at the controls, and Rios didn't see any sign of the Lethean as he approached the bridge, which was also a tad unnerving. He reached the console and tapped a few sequences to pull up readings on his location. But the data that came up was all jumbled and didn't make any sense at all.

Rios jabbed more frenetically at the controls. "Emmet," he hissed. "Enoch."

None of the EHs responded. Rios looked out the window and stiffened. Something wasn't right—there weren't enough stars. Only a few winked in and out in the vast, inky black of space.

" _Qué diablos_ ," he muttered.

The rattle of the metal staircase behind him had Rios whirling to find the Lethean coming at him. He whipped his phaser up and fired, hitting the Lethean square in the chest and sending him falling backward to the deck below. Rios rushed to the edge of the railing and looked down, only to find no one there.

He reeled back, heart hammering inside his chest. What the hell was going on?

Spinning back to the control console, he tried to pull up long-range communications and send a message to Raffi, or Picard, or anyone he could get a hold of. But the signal was met with dead space. He did a long-range scan next and didn't detect any ships, or planets…nothing.

He staggered, running a hand over his hair. Something was _very_ wrong here, and he couldn't reach anyone to help him figure it out, not even the EHs. He was utterly and completely alone.

Well, except for the Lethean, it seemed.

Rios took a moment to collect himself and then turned and headed to the back of the ship and the weapons rack where he added another small phaser to his belt and slung a phaser rifle over his shoulder as well. Then he looked around, at a loss as to what to do.

Get the EHs online, he ordered himself. He made his way to the nearest control panel and pulled up a diagnostic of the ship's systems. But according to the readings, nothing was wrong. Rios swiped through the systems, searching for the EH programs, but he couldn't find them.

He inhaled sharply, trying very hard not to lose it. Maybe he should work on getting navigation up and backtracking how the ship had come to be out in this unknown quadrant.

He turned, only to come face to face with the Lethean. The creature hissed and grabbed his shoulders, flinging him to the floor. Rios grunted as he landed on the phaser rifle. Rolling over, he managed to get the weapon up and swung it like a bat, clobbering the Lethean in the face. He then flipped it around and fired. The phaser blast hit the Lethean and he vanished like a mirage.

Rios scrambled to his feet, chest heaving, and checked the settings on the rifle. Not set to incinerate. Okay, he didn't know what was going on, but he suspected it had something to do with that bastard. Letheans were a telepathic species…maybe he was messing with Rios's head.

"Emmet!" he bellowed, wondering if he could just be loud enough to get through whatever weird mind warp thing this was.

But again nothing happened.

Rios slammed his palm against the bulkhead in frustration, then stood there for several long moments, having no idea what to do now.

A flicker of movement in the corner of his eye had him whipping his head up, and then he could only gape in growing horror as the back of his ship began to literally crumble in on itself, like it was slowly being consumed by a black hole. There was no vacuum of space though, no rush of oxygen getting sucked out, and for a moment Rios thought it was just an illusion to mess with his mind. But the longer he stared at it drawing closer, the more his instincts were screaming at him to _move_.

He backpedaled, then turned and sprinted toward the other end of the ship, only to skid to a stop when he found the bridge turning to smoke and floating away as well. He shot a look behind him. He was trapped.

He rounded the back of the captain's chair just as it started to dissolve and hurried down the starboard side of the ship, the devouring nothingness on his heels. It cornered him outside his quarters, as though herding him into a tiny square box to die. Still, terror was a powerful motivator and he turned to tumble into his quarters. He staggered to a stop, heart stuttering painfully as he found himself looking at the walls of his quarters, not on _La Sirena_ , but the _ibn Majid_.

" _Qué chucha_ ," he breathed, then whirled back around. There was just a blank wall behind him. No door, no black hole. He still had the phaser rifle. So he was officially losing his mind.

He paced agitatedly. What was he supposed to do now? He could stay in here, hopefully avoid running into anyone. But what if the Lethean found him? Or what if this ship started crumbling around him? Sitting tight and hiding never did anyone any good.

A distant voice susurrated through the air and he snapped his head up.

"Hello?"

It spoke again, but was too faint to make out, like ghosts whispering from beyond a veil.

Rios cursed again. Then with a shaky breath, he ventured out into the empty hall.

.o.0.o.

Raffi stood next to the medical bed, clasping Cris's hand in both of hers. "I don't know if you can hear me, but you have to fight this. You have to come back to us." She blinked back the beginnings of tears. "I need you, dammit. We all do. You think any one of us is going to take over your ship with you gone? So you'd better kick this thing in the ass and wake up."

There was no response from Rios, not even a twitch or eye movement. Raffi looked up at Agnes standing on the other side of the bed, her expression taut and shaking, like it was taking every ounce of her willpower not to break down. The holographic monitor poised above Cris's head pulsed out steady, rhythmic readings…except when a small piece of it fizzled out. Neurons dying, Agnes had said.

Elnor strode into sickbay then. "I found the synth device," he said, holding up the alien tech.

Raffi straightened. "Hey, can we use that on Rios? I mean, it fixed a fused coil just by wishing it fixed."

Agnes took the handheld device from Elnor and turned it over in her hand, mouth pursed pensively. She then held it out over Rios. The three of them and Emil watched with bated breath for something to happen. But the thing didn't even light up.

"It doesn't work on lifeforms," Soji said, joining them. "But I have an idea. I've been researching the Letheans and how some people were able to survive the telepathic attacks, and I've concluded it's a battle that has to be fought in the mind. If we construct a quantum simulation for Rios's consciousness, I can transfer my consciousness into it as well and help him fight off the Lethean's attack."

Raffi's brows rose dubiously. "You want to…transplant his mind into a box?"

"A simulation," Soji reiterated. "So I can speak to Rios directly. He may not know what's happening and not know how to fight it off."

"What's going on?" Seven asked as she and Picard joined them.

"Oh, nothing, Soji just wants to download Rios's brain into a computer," Raffi snarked.

"It's how we saved Picard," Soji pressed.

"We're not transferring Cris's consciousness to a synth body," Agnes put in. "Scanning, mapping, and transferring a complete neural map of brain substrates is complex enough for that, but trying to transfer it _back_ to an organic body after we're done…that's a whole other can of very complex worms."

"Good thing you're the leading expert," Soji replied.

Agnes shook her head. "No, it's too risky. We don't even have a proper lab. We could lose Cris completely."

"We're already losing him," Soji countered fervently.

Raffi shook her head, unable to accept these were the only choices they had. She looked over at Seven and raised her brows in question, looking for a rational opinion.

Seven was contemplative for a moment, then shrugged. "The odds of Rios dying are high either way. At least with Soji's plan he may have a chance."

"This is a very big risk," Picard chimed in. "We're talking about playing with Rios's mind, which could have severe repercussions."

"The Lethean is destroying his mind," Soji said. "And I believe this will work." She turned to Agnes. "I believe you can make it work."

Agnes shook her head, still looking terrified. Raffi didn't blame her; the bulk of responsibility in this endeavor would weigh on her shoulders. Cris's life would be in her hands.

"Emil?" Raffi asked.

The EMH rocked slightly on his heels with his hands stuffed in his pockets. "I don't necessarily agree with this radical suggestion," he said, then added, "but there's nothing left that my programming can do."

And that was it: either they sat there and did nothing, hoping Cris could beat this on his own, or they took some very sketchy and dangerous action to try to save him. Raffi wondered what he would advocate for himself…what he would do if it were one of them lying in that bed.

"No one's going to ask my opinion?" Elnor spoke up.

Raffi blinked, faltering for a second. "I'm sorry, sweetie," she said. "What do you think?"

Elnor cast his gaze around at them all. "I don't want Captain Rios to die. If Soji has a chance to save him…well, it is the Qowat Milat way to champion lost causes."

They all fell silent with somber looks at that. It was a long shot, at the very least.

Picard stepped forward and nodded to Soji. "Do it. Also, I will be accompanying you into Rios's mind."

Soji hesitated, then opened her mouth as though to argue, but Picard cut her off.

"I'm not going to let you go alone, not when we have no idea what you'll be facing. And my consciousness is also a set of mapped substrates that can be transferred more easily than anyone else's."

Soji closed her mouth and nodded with a small smile.

Picard turned to Agnes. "Dr. Jurati, you have work to do."

Agnes still didn't look confident in this, but she gave a jerky nod and went off with Soji to begin whatever work they'd need to make this happen.

Raffi stayed with Cris, clutching his hand in hers as though that would keep him anchored long enough for this plan to be implemented.

"Hang in there," she pleaded. "We're coming for you."


	3. Chapter 3

It took an hour for Soji and Agnes to agree on a mechanism for this endeavor of theirs. Coming up with the plan was one thing; practically implementing it was another. Agnes kept insisting that trying to remove Rios's consciousness from his brain posed too many dangers and risks of complications, especially if the telepathic residue remained behind and continued to dismantle his brain cells; then there'd be nothing left to put his consciousness back into.

They came up with a relay station instead that could be used to project Soji's and Picard's consciousnesses into Rios's mind. Obviously, they didn't have the tech for that on board _La Sirena_ , nor did any such technology exist to their knowledge. But thankfully they had the synth imaginative device, which they used to convert a data port into the remote relay system they needed. That took another hour, and by the time they were done, they were both anxious with Rios's condition slowly but steadily declining.

They hooked the device up to a power source and started it up. Agnes went over to Rios and began placing nodes across his forehead.

Taking a deep breath, Soji walked to the edge of sickbay to get the attention of Picard, Elnor, and Seven who were sitting out at the mess table. "We're ready."

They all solemnly rose and filed into sickbay.

"You're sure about this?" Picard asked, eyeing the device.

"I understand if you've changed your mind," Soji said.

He canted a wry look at her. "Not a chance."

"Here," Emil called as he dragged a cot out from a storage compartment and set it up. A second was already erected perpendicular to it. "You will want to lie down for this."

Soji walked over and took a seat. Truth be told, she was nervous. Of the two of them, Picard was the one who'd experienced a quantum simulation and consciousness transfer before, so she was glad he was intent on going with her. She didn't know what to expect.

Picard sat on the next cot, also looking a tad touched with trepidation, evidenced by his fingers flexing in and out on his knees.

Agnes came over and pressed a transmitter node to Soji's temple, then one to Picard's.

"How are we supposed to know when you've succeeded so we can pull your consciousnesses back out?" Emil asked, watching them pensively.

Soji nodded to Rios's current bio-signs. "When his neural pathways stop degrading. That should be a clear signal that it worked."

"And if it doesn't work?" Seven spoke up. "What if you two get caught up in the degradation?"

Soji looked at Picard. She couldn't speak for him, but she knew there was no quitting point for her, no threshold where she would choose to abandon Rios. "That's a risk I'm willing to take."

Picard nodded his silent agreement, and Soji didn't know whether to feel bolstered by his support or apprehensive because this was her idea and she could very well be leading them both to their deaths. But Rios had done a lot for the both of them and Soji was no more prepared to watch him die than she had been Picard on Coppelius.

She swung her legs up onto the cot and lay down, folding her arms across her stomach and letting out a slow exhalation. She closed her eyes, trying to brace herself for the unknown. The node on her temple beeped, then she felt a dizzying sort of whoosh. The next thing she knew, she was standing in the observation deck of what looked like a starship, looking out into a Stygian blackness.

"This is a Federation vessel," Picard remarked, and Soji found him standing behind her.

She frowned. "Agnes and I didn't set any parameters for the simulation. So this must be Rios's subconscious." She swept her gaze around the empty room. "I thought it would have been _La Sirena_."

"I believe this is the _ibn Majid_. It was Rios's home for as long as _La Sirena_ has been."

Soji's frown deepened when Rios failed to appear. "Where is he?"

"The mind is a vast plane," Picard replied. "Or at least as large as this ship. I suggest we simply start looking."

They ventured out of the observation deck and into the corridor. Soji glanced up and down it and turned to Picard. "Which way?"

He shrugged and simply picked a direction.

The halls were eerily empty, but Soji had to remind herself that for all the realistic details surrounding them, they weren't actually on a real Federation starship.

They rounded a junction and pulled up short—the other end of the corridor was slowly crumbling into nothingness and creeping toward them. Soji was both fascinated and horrified by the sight, knowing that it represented what was happening to Rios as they stood there.

They quickly backtracked and hurried the other way.

"There has to be a better method than running around like this," she said anxiously as they stopped to catch their breath and decide which way to go next.

Picard pursed his mouth, then said, "Computer, locate Captain- er, Commander Rios."

"Commander Rios is on the bridge," the computer replied.

Picard arched a brow. "I should have thought of that at the start."

"Do you know how to get to the bridge?" Soji asked.

Picard nodded and pointed which way for them to go. They took a few more turns down the corridors before finding a turbolift to take them to the bridge. When the doors slid open at their destination, Soji broke into a relieved grin at the sight of Rios bent over one of the ops stations.

"Rios!"

He whirled sharply, hand going to the phaser rifle slung over one shoulder.

"Sorry," Soji apologized. "We've been looking all over for you."

His brows knitted together. "Who are you? How did you get aboard this ship?"

Soji faltered. "What? It's me, Soji. And Picard. Don't you remember us?"

Of all the scenarios she'd anticipated for entering Rios's mind, one where he'd already suffered significant brain damage hadn't been one of them.

"Picard?" Rios repeated incredulously. " _The_ Captain Picard?"

"Admiral," Picard corrected. "Retired. And you're Captain Rios."

Rios frowned. "I'm not the captain. The captain is…" His jaw ticked as he looked back at the console. "Missing. Along with everyone else."

"This is going to sound insane but I need you to trust us," Picard said earnestly. "This isn't real. It's a simulation inside your mind caused by a telepathic attack from a Lethean."

Rios did look at him as though he were crazy.

"You are Captain Rios of the freighter ship _La Sirena_. I hired you to take me across the galaxy to find Soji here and we succeeded. Several hours ago you were attacked by a Lethean and it left you in a coma."

Rios started shaking his head at them, his hand reaching for his weapon again. "I don't know what you're playing at…"

"Haven't you noticed the parts of the ship that are disintegrating?" Soji pushed.

He narrowed his eyes on her. "It's some kind of an attack, or quantum phase disruption…"

"It is an attack, on your mind. Agnes and I built a relay system so Picard and I could transfer our consciousnesses into your mind and help you fight it off. You remember Agnes Jurati, right? And Raffi and Seven and Elnor? They're all on _La Sirena_ right now, waiting for us to bring you back."

Rios took a step back, bumping into the control console. " _Mierda_ ," he muttered, pressing a palm to his eyes. "My ship…it got…swallowed by a black hole or something, and then I found myself here…" He cast his gaze around the bridge, suddenly looking lost. "What the hell is going on?" he breathed shakily.

"As we said," Picard answered, "you were attacked by a Lethean. You're in a coma."

Rios shook his head at them again. "You're not real."

"No, we are," Soji said. "Because Picard and I possess synthetic bodies, our neural pathways are more conducive to interacting with simulations. Which is why we decided to transfer our minds into yours to help you beat this telepathic attack."

Rios's eyes blew wide. "You invaded my goddamn head?"

Soji blinked, taken aback. "To help."

"I know it's a lot to take in," Picard interjected. "But it was the only way. You _are_ dying, unless we find a way to stop the telepathic attack's progression."

Rios ran a hand down his face. "I remember the Lethean," he said abruptly. "He's here. He's been trying to kill me."

Picard frowned. "He is?"

"It must be a manifestation of the Lethean's telepathic signature," Soji put in. "Which means if we kill it, that should stop the progression."

"I have killed him," Rios said tightly. "A few times. He keeps coming back."

"How did you kill him?" Picard asked.

Rios gestured to the phasers he was carrying. "Shot him point blank. He just flickers out like a hologram and comes back later."

"We need something more powerful, then, to take it out," Soji mused.

"Like what?"

She wasn't sure yet, but before she could start working it out, her eyes widened at the vid screen as it started to fold in on itself. "We need to go."

Rios looked over his shoulder and scrambled away from the console as tendrils of emptiness stretched toward it. The three of them hurried back into the turbolift and went down a few decks, hoping to escape the encroaching nothingness. They spilled out onto another level into an empty corridor. Rios staggered a few paces and braced a hand against the wall.

"Are you okay?" Soji asked worriedly.

" _No_. I've either lost my mind, or I'm about to if everything you've said is true."

"We're not going to let that happen," she said staunchly, causing him to lift his gaze to hers. She took a step closer. "You got me home and now I'm going to do the same for you."

Rios held her gaze for a long moment before finally shaking his head and straightening himself up. He unclipped the two handheld phasers from his belt and handed them to Soji and Picard.

"So what now?"

"We find the Lethean. Where did it last attack you?"

Rios frowned. "Engineering, I think. I was trying to reroute power to internal forcefields to stop the progression of the ship falling apart."

"Engineering is the heart of the ship's systems," Picard put in. "It would make sense if it represented your brain's control center."

Rios gave another head shake like he was still having trouble processing all of this. "Alright, well, this way."

He led the way through the ship to engineering, but no one was there when they entered.

"Perhaps you should try putting up those shields again," Picard suggested.

Rios went to one of the stations and Soji gripped the phaser in her hand, senses peeled for an attack. Not two minutes later, the Lethean came charging around the corner. Soji whipped her arm up and fired two quick bursts. The Lethean reared back and vanished.

"That's what he did before," Rios commented tightly.

Soji frowned and walked over to a station to pull up internal sensors. The ship was still disintegrating.

"Any ideas, Soji?" Picard queried.

She let out a consternated huff as she wracked her brain for alternatives.

"You should both go," Rios spoke up. "Get out of here before you die too."

Soji whirled toward him. "I'm not giving up."

"And I don't want to watch either of you die," Rios snapped back, flicking a look at Picard. "Once was enough."

"There is still time, Rios," Picard replied.

"Maybe we're going about this all wrong," Soji said. "We've been treating the Lethean like an intruder, but it's more pervasive than that. A phaser shot obviously isn't enough." She pressed her lips together in thought. "We need to eradicate it, wholly and completely."

"How?" Rios asked in frustration.

"I have an idea. Where's sickbay?"

Looking resigned, Rios merely gestured for them to follow him again. They left engineering and made their way through the ship until they found sickbay. Soji immediately went to one of the consoles and began readying her plan.

"We'll trap the Lethean in a quarantine field and blast it with radiation," she explained.

"How are we going to get it here?" Picard asked.

"I'll bypass the systems to access the internal forcefields from here," she replied, already working on it, her fingers flying over the touch screen. "That should get its attention."

Sure enough, the doors swished open and the Lethean stormed in. Rios gripped his phaser rifle reflexively.

"Don't," Soji said, whipping through the sequences. She waited for the Lethean to take a few more steps before initiating the quarantine field around it. "Eat this," she lobbed as she flooded the compartment with radiation.

The Lethean threw its head back with a shriek, twisting and contorting where it stood until it finally exploded into trillions of tiny particles.

Soji threw an elated look at Rios and Picard. "It worked!"

Rios looked slightly skeptical. "Well, that was different this time…"

"Well done," Picard praised her.

Soji beamed.

Rios cast a wary glance around. "Nothing's changed."

"We just need to give Agnes and Emil a few minutes to transfer our consciousnesses back," Soji said.

"And then I'll just…wake up from this nightmare?"

"You should."

The sickbay doors swooshed open then and a figure stepped inside, decked out in a full armored body suit, helmet visor blacked out.

Soji faltered. "Um, who is that?"

The figure raised a phaser gun at them and fired. Soji ducked down behind a biobed as Rios pushed Picard behind a desk. He popped up again to return fire, but the phaser blasts rippled over the body armor like water. Rios swore and dropped down again as the masked figure peppered the wall with phaser bursts.

Soji broke from her cover and bolted across the room, grabbing the figure's arm and twisting it around and up. The phaser fell from spasming fingers. He reached over with his other arm and grabbed a fistful of her hair, wrenching her head back. She let out a cry but slapped a hand to the base of her skull to brace herself, then twisted underneath his grip to kick out his legs. He dropped to his knees and she rammed hers into his face. The helmet may have protected him from any damage, but the force at least knocked him to the floor.

"Run!" she shouted at Rios and Picard.

Rios grabbed the admiral and hauled him up as they scrambled for the door. Soji followed, throwing harried glances over her shoulder to see if they were being pursued. So far, not yet.

They rounded a juncture and skidded to a stop as they came upon a corridor still being eaten away by the nothingness.

"I don't understand," Soji gasped. "I killed the Lethean, I know I did!"

So how the hell had it come back as some reinforced, invulnerable manifestation?

Rios gave her a grim look of defeat. He was still dying, and Soji had no idea what to do now.


	4. Chapter 4

Seven gazed down at Picard lying unconscious on the cot, the neural transmitter on the side of his temple blinking steadily. Emil had just checked his vitals, confirming they were normal, and was now checking Soji's. Seven shifted her gaze to the rear of sickbay where Raffi and Agnes were watching over Rios. Raffi was absently stroking her fingers through his hair, careful not to bump the nodes spaced across his forehead. Agnes was holding his hand and talking quietly to him. Seven glanced at the bio monitor behind them and then away grimly.

She disliked inaction, unable to do anything but watch everyone wait and worry. She hadn't spent much time with these people but already she'd become attached in small ways. Raffi was an interesting new experience she wanted to explore. Elnor had somehow wormed his way into that part of her heart that took stray orphans under her wing. And she liked Rios. There was a kind of kinship Seven felt with him, something intangible that couldn't be defined but she knew it when she saw it. They had both gone down dark roads yet still after all this time continued trying to do the right thing. Even when "right" wasn't always so clear.

A small rattle drew Seven's attention to where Elnor stood over a counter, fists pressed against the surface as he bowed his head, shoulders taut. She walked over to him.

"I don't like this not doing anything," the kid said.

Seven let out a humorless smirk. "Me neither."

He lifted his head toward her, expression distressed. "I keep having to watch the people I vowed to protect die. Hugh. Picard. I am a disgrace to the Qowat Milat." His expression crumpled. "I was never truly one of them to begin with. The Qowat Milat is an order of female warriors. I am a…pretender."

Seven arched a brow. "Or one of a kind. And you did a pretty good job on the Borg cube."

"I failed to protect Hugh," he countered.

Seven nodded sadly. "You can't save everyone," she said quietly.

Elnor's gaze drifted toward Rios. "If I hadn't gone to the market, if I had stayed behind…"

"'If' causes more grief than one event of tragedy," Seven interjected. "If Rios hadn't used the synth device. If the synths hadn't given it to him in the first place. If we had chosen another port to stop at." She shook her head. "A million and one little decisions that could have affected the outcome…or not. It could be you lying there instead. Or both of you."

Elnor's mouth turned down. "That doesn't make me feel better."

"Nothing makes losing a friend better."

His eyes crinkled. "But we haven't lost him yet."

"No," Seven agreed, glancing again at Picard and Soji. It was brave, what they were doing, perhaps foolish. But Seven dearly hoped they succeeded. "Rios doesn't need your protection, by the way," she added, casting a sidelong look at Elnor.

The kid looked almost crestfallen, like his value lay solely in his role as a warrior.

"He needs this," Seven went on, nodding to all of them gathered in vigil. "He needs us here when he wakes up."

Elnor frowned in confusion. "To do what?"

"To just be here. Sometimes that's all you can do. And that's not nothing."

She needed the reminder as well. It may not have been her preferred means of contribution, and it may grate on her, but she'd chosen to align herself with these people. Which meant she was in all the way, even if they had to walk through the darkness. Because they would do it together.

An alarm started going off on Rios's monitor. Seven stiffened as Emil strode over and began urgently flicking through the readings.

"What's wrong?" Raffi asked.

"What's been wrong from the start," the EMH replied. "His neural pathways are deteriorating and with them the brain's ability to keep the body functioning."

He made a few more intense taps on the holographic screen, and a moment later a quantum generated projection floated down from above to sink into Rios's chest, the orange lights settling around his organs and beginning to pulse rhythmically as they took over the primary functions of his lungs and heart.

Agnes pressed a hand over her mouth and turned away.

Emil sighed. "I can keep his body alive for a while, but the longer this goes on, the harder it will be to take him off the life support."

"What are you saying?" Raffi demanded.

"That at some point, even if Admiral Picard and Soji succeed, the damage may be irreversible." Emil hesitated. "And we may want to start considering pulling them out."

"But they haven't succeeded yet," Elnor protested vehemently.

"So far there's no evidence to suggest they will at all." Emil shook his head. "Look, he is my captain and has always been my first priority. I don't want to lose him any more than the rest of you do. But I can't ignore that there are two other lives at stake now."

"You're saying we have to choose," Raffi said in dismay.

"No," Seven spoke up. "We don't. It was Picard's and Soji's decision to do this, knowing the risks. We have to let them see it through."

Everyone looked devastated by that, not that there was any choice here they could make without risking significant loss. But it wasn't their choice to make this time.

And that was a burden they would all have to carry.

.o.0.o.

Rios was trying very hard not to let his jackhammering heart and racing pulse completely overwhelm him and send him spiraling into the tailspin his mind wanted to fling him into. The mind that was steadily deteriorating and would soon snuff him out like a sputtering candle.

Rios was no stranger to his own mortality and had held a rather fatalistic view of it ever since his life had so tragically fallen apart. But to see his death coming, literally swallowing him up in a black hole of extinction? That was a whole other level of messed up and he didn't know whether to curse or laugh.

If it was just him here, he might have given up already and let the Lethean finish the job just to get it over with. But he wasn't alone. Soji and Picard just _had_ to come barging into his head on a suicide mission and now they could end up dying too.

"I can't believe you agreed to this," he snapped at Picard as they tried to outrun the nothingness slowly devouring this mock-up ship that apparently represented his mind. "I mean, I knew you had a martyr complex, but this is something else."

"We believed we had a shot," Picard replied.

"Yeah, and look how well that worked out!"

Picard pulled up short to give him a stern glare. "We're not beaten yet. And we're tying to save _you_."

"I didn't ask you to!"

"Look out!" Soji yelled.

Rios grabbed Picard and flung him against the wall as a phaser blast skimmed past where they'd been standing. He swung his arm up and fired back. So did Soji. But their hits struck the Lethean and simply got absorbed by his new body armor instead of making him disappear like before. He continued striding toward them, metal-plated boots thudding heavily across the floor.

Rios shoved Picard forward and they continued to flee. There was a turbolift at the end of the corridor and they hurried toward it, ducking phaser fire that erupted on their tail and left scorch marks on the bulkheads they ran past. The turbolift's doors swished open at their arrival and they scrambled inside. The Lethean didn't run, his pace remaining eerily steady and determined. The doors closed just in time to take another phaser blast, and Rios sagged back against the wall as they were swept up to another deck. But he knew it was only a matter of time.

"Can you get yourselves back?" he asked again.

"The others know not to pull us out until we've stopped the Lethean's attack on you," Soji said.

"But you _can't_. Please, for god's sake, I don't want to be responsible for your deaths too!"

Soji merely leveled a stubborn look at him. "This was our choice."

Rios shook his head and turned away, clenching his fist and resisting the urge to punch the wall. How dare they put this burden on him? Even if he wouldn't be alive very long to bear it.

"We just have to try something else," Soji went on. "What if we ejected the Lethean into space?"

The turbolift stopped and the doors opened, letting them off onto another deck that was still intact for the moment. Rios squeezed his eyes shut against a wave of dizziness.

"Rios?" Picard's concerned voice echoed weirdly, and when he opened his eyes, the admiral was gripping his elbow.

"Sorry, I…" He didn't know what, actually. His brain was literally turning to mush and he really wished he didn't know that.

"Um, not this way," Soji said, eyes wide as she gazed down the corridor. The blackness was breaking through a closed blast door bit by bit.

Soji turned and took Rios's other arm, and she and Picard led him the opposite direction. He was feeling woozy now and the walls started to warp around him, sending his heart rate into overdrive, even though it wasn't the black hole catching up to them—yet.

There was a set of doors ahead and Soji and Picard quickened their pace toward them. Rios dug in his heels and jolted them to a stop.

"No."

"What?" Soji asked urgently, whipping her gaze around for the threat.

Rios's blood roared in his ears, his heart pounding painfully inside his chest.

"We need to keep moving," Picard urged.

Soji turned toward the doors and Rios lashed out to grab her arm.

"You can't go in there."

She frowned at him in confusion. "Why not?"

"Just…don't."

"Rios," Picard said impatiently, "the ship is falling apart. We have to find a way to fix it."

Rios only tightened his grip on Soji's arm and threw her a pleading look. "Don't go in there."

Soji's brows knitted together as she studied him, then smoothed in revelation. "That's where Jana died."

"We need to go somewhere else," he insisted. "You and your brother need to get back to your ship. You need to leave."

But as he half turned to backtrack the way they'd come, he saw the walls crumbling behind them.

"Rios," Soji prompted, bringing her other hand up to grip his arm in return. "I'm not Jana."

He squinted at her, two faces identical save for the golden tinge merging over each other, long hair falling in ebony sheets and then cut short… He blinked trying to clear the mirage.

"Soji," he ground out, more to snap himself out of this stupor. "You can't go in there," he repeated.

"We don't have a choice," Picard spoke up, gaze fixed on the opposite corridor.

Rios and Soji turned to look and saw the Lethean standing there. Hemmed in on both sides by death, they truly had no choice but to scramble through those doors.

Rios staggered to a stop inside, paralyzed in horror at the scene splayed out before him. He heard Soji's and Picard's urgent voices as they sealed the doors, then a stunned silence.

"Oh god," Soji breathed.

So she saw it too: her distant sister lying face down in a pool of blood, her brother's body beside her. And several feet away lay Vandermeer, blood and brain matter splattered across the bulkhead above him.

"I don't understand," Soji said. "We haven't seen anyone else on the ship."

"I don't know," Picard said quietly.

Rios couldn't look at them, couldn't tear his gaze away from the grotesque scene, the greatest shame of his life. How heinously fitting that he should bring Jana's sister and another heroic captain here to die. Because of him.

Phaser fire echoed on the other side of the sealed doors. There was nowhere left to run. Within moments the doors exploded inward in a shower of broken pieces, sparks, and smoke, and the Lethean stepped through.

Soji ran at him, her synth reflexes like lightning in hand-to-hand. The Lethean easily threw up an arm to block and barely flinched when she landed a punch to his protected face. He swung a retaliatory blow which she ducked under. Rios gripped his phaser rifle but couldn't risk firing. Not that it would matter anyway.

The Lethean threw Soji to the floor, but she rolled quickly, wrapping her legs around his knees and bringing him down to the same level. Capturing him in a headlock, she tried to hold him still for someone to shoot him. But he was too strong and flipped her over his shoulder to go tumbling across the floor again. His helmet got yanked off in the process, and Rios felt the oxygen get sucked out of the room as the figure straightened and he found himself staring at…himself.

.o.0.o.

Picard stood stock-still, unsure what to make of this development. He wasn't unaccustomed to seeing more than one version of Rios in the same room, given the man's odd preference for his emergency holograms to resemble himself. But this recently unmasked figure in full body armor with cold, flinty eyes wasn't one of the quirky holograms. It must have been some trick of the Lethean to throw them off.

Rios stared at the steel soldier wearing his face, and for a long moment no one moved, not even the assassin, who merely stared back at Rios, phaser aimed at him but not firing.

Rios broke first, yelling, "Just do it!"

"No!" Soji shouted, leaping to her feet in front of Rios and throwing a hand out as the assassin straightened his aim. But he didn't fire with her in the way.

Rios grabbed her by the arms and tried to wrench her out of the line of fire, but she simply grabbed hold of him as well and refused to be budged.

"It's not the Lethean!" she exclaimed. "I did kill it. But its attack must have triggered something else. It's not the thing killing you anymore, you are!"

Rios's face scrunched up incredulously. "Excuse me?"

She gestured at the macabre scene behind him. "You have to finally forgive yourself. This has been destroying you for years and the Lethean attack just finally gave it an agent."

She half turned and pointed to the silent assassin still facing them, waiting. For what, Picard didn't know, but he was beginning to think Soji was correct.

"You've never forgiven yourself for covering up their deaths," Soji went on. "But you have to. It's the only way to stop all this."

Rios shook his head and staggered away from her. Still the assassin didn't move, as though suspended by the doubt planted in Rios's mind. Which only lent credence to Soji's theory.

"Soji's right," Picard put in. "It's been ten years; you have to let it go."

Rios spun toward him, eyes flashing. "Just like that, huh? The way you let go of your friend Data's death? Don't pretend you didn't carry that around for _twenty_ years. At least he died for a noble cause. My captain died for _this_!" He gestured sharply at the bodies of Jana and Beautiful Flower.

Picard let the sting of invoking Data wash over him as quickly as it had been delivered. He understood the pain behind it, knew the importance of closure and the aching void not finding it left within the soul.

"It was an impossible choice," he said. "And he chose to protect his crew. You both did. Starfleet is the one who betrayed you both."

Rios's eyes pinched and his voice broke. "You don't know the things I said to him." He turned back around to face his captain's body and sank to his knees. "I drove him to it."

Picard approached carefully. "I didn't know Captain Vandermeer well, but if he were here, I am certain he would tell you his choice was not your doing. That no matter what was said between you, he was the one unable to find the strength to live with what Starfleet had forced him to do. And I believe he would regret having left you to carry the burden of it alone."

Rios didn't say anything, his head hanging in abject brokenness.

Soji knelt down beside him. "You're not alone in this anymore. We all carry some measure of darkness inside that circumstances or other people have inflicted on us. Everyone on _La Sirena_. And maybe that's part of why it's become home for me." She tentatively reached out and took his lax hand. "Don't leave us the way he left you."

Rios flinched as though he'd been struck. The words were perhaps cruelly pointed but they were honest.

"I did carry the weight of Data's death for twenty years," Picard added. "So take it from an old man who recently learned how to accept it and move on: sooner is better than later."

Rios bowed his head and let out a shuddering breath. "I don't know how."

"Stop punishing yourself for things that were beyond your control."

Rios stared at his former captain's body for a long time. Neither Picard nor Soji said anything. This was an intensely personal trial Rios had to overcome on his own. Picard glanced at the armored assassin, still in standby mode. He wondered whether the ship beyond the broken doors was still disintegrating.

Rios finally gave a full-body shudder, and with that the assassin turned to smoke and dissipated. Soji broke into a smile and threw her arms around Rios. He was stiff in her embrace, seeming unsure what to do with it. Picard nodded and settled a hand on the man's shoulder.

"What now?" Rios asked hoarsely.

Soji straightened to look him in the eye. "Now we go home."

Picard felt it a moment later, a tingling in his synapses that was similar to the sensation he'd felt when Dr. Jurati had first transferred his consciousness from his body. His vision gradually darkened, and then there were sparks and bright flashes, and the next thing he knew he was blinking up at the blurry visage of Seven of Nine standing over him.

"Welcome back."


	5. Chapter 5

Picard sat up slowly and looked around _La Sirena_ 's sickbay. Soji was awake and rising from her cot. Both of them looked toward Rios lying on the medical bed. Behind it, the EMH was talking quietly with Raffi and Agnes. Everyone looked far too grim for the victory they had just achieved.

"You stopped the Lethean's telepathic attack," Seven surmised quietly.

"Yes, but…" He trailed off as Soji surged forward toward Rios.

"Why isn't he waking up?" she demanded. "It worked."

Emil nodded gravely. "Yes, the neural degradation ceased. But…I'm afraid there was a lot of damage. I can gradually take him off the life support, but there's no way to tell how much cognitive function he'll retain."

Soji simply gaped at the EMH uncomprehendingly. "But, we were just talking with him. He's still in there!"

Picard briefly closed his eyes in grief. This was one of life's hardest lessons: sometimes you can do everything right—and still fail. How many young cadets and officers had he had to walk through such a learning experience?

Soji threw a desperate look around at each of them. "We were so close. It _worked_. It can't just be for nothing."

Not nothing, Picard thought. At the very least, they gave Rios the ability to find peace, at the end.

"Hang on," Raffi spoke up. "All this scanning and mapping of brain substrates…if we had a copy of Rios's mind, intact, couldn't we just…reconstruct the damaged pieces from that?"

Emil pursed his mouth in intrigued thought. "It's hardly the most wild idea that's been floated today. But we didn't make a scan before the attack was able to progress too far."

Raffi broke into a giddy grin and waved her finger at him. "No, we have one from earlier. One complete scan divided and overlaid in five different holographic programs."

Picard furrowed his brow, not following.

"The EHs," Agnes said, eyes widening.

Raffi nodded earnestly. "Rios did a self-scan of himself when he programmed them. They have his memories, his personality. Granted, scattered into a dysfunctional spiderweb, but if we gather all the EHs and map those neural networks, then compare them with Rios's, can't we just…fill in the blanks?"

"You guys really are insane," Seven commented, but she sounded impressed.

"We don't exactly have anything to lose at this point, do we?" Raffi pushed, turning to Agnes.

Agnes bit her bottom lip as she considered it, but after a lengthy beat lifted her head staunchly. "I'm willing to give it a shot."

"Alright," Raffi said, "all EHs, get your butts in sickbay. We've got a lot of work to do."

Picard was forced to take several steps back as the room suddenly filled with the other emergency holograms. They were surprisingly eager to help in whatever way they could to save their captain. But then, they were, on their most basic level, Rios himself.

Elnor came to stand beside him. "More waiting," he said sullenly.

Picard glanced at him sideways. "Not necessarily. I think they're all going to need some coffee to get through this. Why don't we replicate some for them?"

Elnor flicked a glum look at him, but then nodded. "That is not nothing."

"No," Picard agreed. "It is not."

.o.0.o.

Rios felt like he was floating in a bog, like his marrow had been slurped out and replaced with sludge. And yet at the same time he didn't quite feel…tangible. And that was a trippy sensation. Everything was dark and frozen and he couldn't move and that should have been more alarming but every time he started to panic, exhaustion would snatch it away and he'd sink again.

Voices warbled around him, indistinct and distant. But there was something…comforting about them. Familiar.

"Cris, can you hear me? Open your eyes for me, baby."

There was something in that voice, something he responded to on an instinctual level. It somehow loosened the mire around him and he felt himself rising to the surface.

His eyes cracked open sluggishly, filling his vision with painful lights and blurred colors.

"That's it," the voice coaxed.

He shifted his gaze toward it, blinking languidly until the fuzzy shapes took on sharper edges and he could make out the worried face of his best friend.

"Raffi?" he rasped.

She broke into a watery smile and let out a half blubbering laugh as she brushed his hair back from his forehead. "Yeah, right here. How are you feeling?"

He frowned. "I had the weirdest dream…" Pieces were flashing through his mind in a confusing jumble.

"If it involved the three of us running around the _ibn Majid_ while being hunted by an alien assassin," a new, older voice spoke up. "Then it was no dream."

Rios lolled his gaze toward the foot of the bed where he found a surprising number of people gathered. Normally that kind of attention would have irked him, but he was too tired and dazed to be irritated at the moment.

"Admiral."

Picard arched a brow. "You remember I'm not a captain anymore. That's good."

"How are you feeling?" Soji repeated Raffi's earlier question, wringing her hands in front of her.

A reflexive "fine" was on the tip of his tongue, but the nervous look in everyone's eyes gave him pause. He glanced to his left and saw Agnes and Emil standing at his side, also watching tensely.

He swallowed around a dry mouth. "My head is killing me," he admitted. He frowned when he noticed a few of them wince at that.

"You went through a major trauma," Agnes was quick to explain, and he could see her trying to erect a mask of professionalism. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Rios furrowed his brow as he tried to drudge up the memory of what he'd last been doing. The air was heavy with how important his answer would be, he could tell. But why? How badly had he been hurt?

A spike of pain pierced his skull as he abruptly remembered the Lethean's attack.

"Cris?" Raffi called worriedly. "What is it, what's wrong?"

He forced his eyes open again, not realizing he'd closed them. "Nothing. I- I remember the Lethean." His brows pulled together and he looked back at Soji and Picard. "You came after me."

Soji looked relieved while Picard nodded carefully.

"Do you remember what happened while we were in your mind?" he asked.

Rios shuddered at the memory of it, of the ship crumbling into nothingness around him, of not knowing what was happening or how to stop it. And then at the end, when Soji and Picard had borne witness to his failings and weakness.

"Do you remember?" Soji pressed, and yes, Rios remembered her earnest eyes, her passionate pleas for him to let go of his past and hold onto his present.

"Yes," he said, voice cracking.

"I'm sure you all have a lot to discuss," Emil interrupted. "But Dr. Jurati and I would like to run some more scans."

"I'm fine," Rios automatically growled.

"Cris," Raffi said softly. "You really weren't."

And he could see in their eyes—all of theirs—just how close it had been, and a lingering fear that maybe he wasn't all right yet. It made him uncomfortable, eliciting that kind of response, and he would subject himself to Emil's fussing if it meant getting away from everyone else for a bit while he tried to put the loose pieces in his mind back into place.

The others started to leave, murmuring several "welcome back"s on their way out. Even Raffi left. Rios wanted to get up, but the moment he tried, he found he lacked any energy whatsoever to see it through.

"Please just lie still," Agnes begged.

He tried not to fidget as she and Emil went through a variety of scans, focusing mostly on what looked like ones of the brain.

"Should I be worried?" he asked tautly.

"Actually, you've recovered remarkably well," Emil replied. "I think I'll write a paper on this incident and the unprecedented measures that were taken to bring you back. Ah, in collaboration with Dr. Jurati, of course."

Rios frowned and reached out to snag Agnes's wrist, a cold feeling sweeping through him. "I'm still me, aren't I?" he asked nervously, unsure whether he wanted to ask what exactly they'd done with the whole consciousness transferring thing.

Her expression softened and she leaned down to kiss him. "Yes. I'll tell you all about it later. Right now, you should try to sleep off that beast of a headache you have. And if that's the worst symptom you walk away from this with, then I'm taking you dancing in the holosuite next week."

Rios quirked a brow at her. "Dancing?"

She kissed him again. "Yes."

Emil walked over with a hypospray, which Rios normally would have barked at him to put away, but Agnes was distracting him and he was so tired he barely felt the cool contact and hiss of the device. All he felt was his headache fading and that floaty feeling returning, but it wasn't so dark and heavy this time.

.o.0.o.

Rios sat on the floor of his quarters, having immediately retreated to them after Emil had given him a clean bill of health a few hours earlier. His mind was clearer now and he remembered everything.

Or thought he did. Agnes had explained about using the patterns from the holo squad to repair the brain damage he'd suffered from the Lethean attack. He supposed there was no way to know if there were any gaps left unless he was confronted with something he couldn't recall.

Which was partly why he was sitting on the floor in his room looking through that box of mementos that he only dug out when he was wickedly drunk and maudlin. He hadn't had anything to drink this time. He pulled out a picture of him and Vandermeer and stared at it for a long time. It still hurt. But the pain meant he hadn't forgotten.

He sifted through other memories, recognizing each one, remembering them with a pang in his heart.

He'd somehow managed to let it go, back there in that disintegrating ship, to "forgive" himself. But it wasn't going to be a one-time deal and all his baggage instantly cured. No, forgiving himself was going to have to be a daily thing, something he'd have to continuously work at.

His door beeped with a caller.

"It's Jean-Luc."

Rios grimaced and stiffened, debating whether to send the admiral away or hastily stuff everything back into its box. But Picard had already seen him at his most vulnerable, so what did it matter?

"Come."

The door swished open and the old man stepped inside, his gaze sweeping curiously around the room.

"How are you feeling?"

"Fine," he replied, getting up off the floor. "There doesn't seem to be any permanent damage."

Picard nodded. "That's good to hear." His gaze dropped to the photos scattered about. "Contemplation for the soul?"

Rios shrugged. "Checking my memory. Nothing's missing so far."

"That's also good."

An awkward silence settled between them.

"Why did you do it?" Rios asked abruptly. "You could have died."

Picard didn't answer right away. "You still believe you're not worth saving."

"Not at the cost of someone else."

Picard pursed his mouth thoughtfully. "You know, my biggest regret after Data died was that it was him instead of me. I recently had the chance to see it from his perspective—I would have given my life for him and not regretted it for a single moment—and it was the same for him. If our places had been reversed, and you had the means to save one of us, even at great risk to yourself, would you have done it?"

Rios pressed his lips into a tight line.

Picard's mouth quirked knowingly. "That's what I thought. You've been a long time without a real crew, Rios. You've forgotten that's how we work."

He looked away. "I never wanted that burden again," he admitted. "Never wanted to be in the position to fail anyone ever again."

"Failure is the human condition. What defines us is we keep trying to be better."

Rios shook his head. Speech maker indeed.

"If you've finished checking your memory," Picard went on, "I think it would calm a few people's minds if you came out to see everyone. They also went through their own kind of turmoil over what happened."

Rios's first inclination was to stay in here, not invite so much unwanted attention. But it wasn't just about him anymore.

With a clipped nod, he followed Picard out. Elnor was standing just outside the room, leaning against the deck railing. He straightened at the sight of them, holding himself tautly at first. Rios was about to ask if he wanted something when the kid finally broke and surged forward, practically throwing himself at Rios in a weird, childlike hug with his arms around Rios's waist. Rios was too stunned to react.

"I'm glad you didn't die," Elnor said, voice muffled with his head pressed against Rios's chest.

Rios awkwardly patted him on the back. "Me too."

Elnor finally drew back, and Rios was reminded of just how young he was. For a trained warrior who dealt out death as easily as breathing, Elnor felt loss very poignantly.

Rios glanced over the railing to the mess below to see if the others were down there. They were. He clapped Elnor on the shoulder. "Come on, I'm hungry."

They made their way downstairs. Raffi, Seven, Soji, and Agnes all looked up expectantly at their approach.

"Hey," Raffi beamed. "You're just in time. We were debating on a share platter for lunch."

Rios arched a brow. "Really?"

"Giant plate of nachos," Raffi replied, holding her arms out to mimic the size.

Seven scoffed. "Too messy. Especially if we're gonna have seven pairs of hands diving in."

"What are nachos?" Elnor asked.

"Tortilla chips lathered in cheese sauce, guacamole, and salsa," Rios answered as he took a seat next to Agnes. She surreptitiously slipped her hand into his under the table.

"And meat and beans," Raffi added, affronted. Her face cracked into a slick smile and she wagged a finger at Rios. "No, I know what we need." She got up and headed to the replicator without telling them what it was.

Rios turned to Soji, who was looking a tad tentative where she sat across from him. "I haven't thanked you and Picard yet for saving my life."

Her shoulders visibly loosened and she smiled back. "You're welcome."

A moment later, Raffi brought over a large plate with a giant tear-and-share quesadilla. Rios looked up and caught her eye, immensely grateful for the anchor that she had always been in his life. She grinned back knowingly.

And as they all dove into this shared meal together, Rios remembered what it was like to be part of a crew.

Of a family.


End file.
